A hundred and twenty-five kilometres off the coast of Morocco lies an island where the soil is buried under ash, where it hardly ever rains, and where the wine is nonetheless among the most singular in the world. Here is how that works.
Between 1730 and 1736, Timanfaya erupted almost without pause for six years. When it stopped, a quarter of the island lay under lava and a thick layer of black, porous volcanic grit — picón, or rofe, as they call it on the island. The best soil was gone. Many left. Those who stayed discovered something unexpected: the ash was not only a lid, it was a tool.
Picón draws moisture out of the night air and releases it to the soil beneath when the sun comes up. On an island with between 110 and 150 millimetres of rain a year — among the driest places in Europe — that is the difference between a dead field and a living vine. So the farmers dug: pits down through the ash to the soil, one vine in each, and a crescent of dry stone around it to break the trade wind that blows all year.
The result is a landscape closer to the moon than to a vineyard: thousands of black bowls in rows across the lava fields of La Geria. All of it dug, built and picked by hand. None of it can be mechanised, and a hectare here yields a fraction of what the same hectare gives on the mainland.
International recognition
Three global designations
The most recent came in July 2025, for the farming itself — the pits, the ash and the walls.
1993
UNESCO Biosphere ReserveThe whole island. UNESCO
2015
UNESCO Global GeoparkLanzarote and Chinijo Islands. UNESCO
2025
GIAHS / SIPAMGlobally Important Agricultural Heritage System. FAO
Lanzarote is the first island in Europe to be added to the FAO list.
La Geria
The ashThe volcano left it. It holds the water.The pitDug down to the soil. One vine in each.The wallA crescent against the trade wind.
The volcano gave the ash. The rest was dug and built by hand.
The ash
Porous black picón that holds the night’s moisture and gives it to the soil below. Without it the vines would not survive the summer.
The pit
Up to six metres across and two and a half metres deep, dug by hand down to the soil. One vine in each. That is why yields are so small.
The wall
A crescent of dry stone on the windward side of every pit, against the trade wind that comes from the north-east all year round.
Photo: Casa Althay
Photo: Casa Althay
Photo: Casa Althay
The grape
Malvasía Volcánica grows virtually nowhere else.
It belongs to the island, and it stands on ungrafted vines — pie franco — because phylloxera never reached here. The vines are old, many over a hundred years, and have never been grafted onto American rootstock, as almost every other vine in Europe has.
In the glass it gives flowers first — orange blossom, jasmine — moving into stone fruit. Beneath lies a mineral, almost saline dryness that is impossible to mistake for anything else, and a natural acidity that keeps these wines upright for years.
We came to Lanzarote in 1967. The wine had been there for nearly two hundred years.
The family travel agency sent the first Norwegian travellers to the island in 1967 — decades before any of us gave a thought to importing. The wineries we carry needed no importer. Most of what they make is drunk on the island, and a little goes to selected markets abroad.
They did not need us, and we were in no position to pick them. We chose one another. They know what the family had a hand in when the island first began to receive visitors; we know what they have built since. That reciprocity, rather than any agreement, is what the relationship rests on.
It is also why we can telephone a producer on a Sunday to ask about a vintage.
Monrik Wines is owned and run by Monica and Henrik. We choose the wines, bring them home and stand in the showroom ourselves. On Lanzarote we have a permanent local team who look after things for us through the year.
A young winery · Four wines
Photo: Casa Althay
Photo: Casa Althay
Photo: Casa Althay
Founded 1775 · San Bartolomé · Five wines
Family-run · Three wines
